


Remus and the TARDIS ficlet

by i_claudia



Category: Doctor Who, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Companions, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-18 11:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t supposed to be a long-term arrangement; they agree on that at the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remus and the TARDIS ficlet

**Author's Note:**

> Companion!Remus fic for anowlinsunshine, originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/69950.html#cutid1). (29 April 2011)

It isn’t supposed to be a long-term arrangement; they agree on that at the start. Or at least, Remus agrees—the Doctor might have nodded or it might have been only a twitch at the end of the jump he takes across the ravine. But Remus means it, every word. He can’t afford to be gone long, can’t afford to impose on the Doctor for more than a few months. A few months are all he needs, just long enough to... to forget, a little.

The thing no one mentions before he makes that decision, though, is that while travelling through time and space it becomes sort of difficult to keep track of how long he’s been gone. Time slips by at different speeds, shifts and doubles back on itself, and he’s never really sure _when_ he is anymore. He ends up not minding much about it; he thinks it might be better that way. The bemusing flow makes it easier to go on, to move past the war, and the Doctor is a good diversion from his own thoughts.

It makes it easier to forget that he’s the only one left when he remembers that the Doctor, too, is alone.

Being a Companion isn’t terrible, either. There’s never nothing to do, even when they’re alone in the TARDIS and the universe is more or less quiet outside: the Doctor is always tinkering with things, always shifting, fidgeting, moving from one idea to the next in bounding acrobatics—often literally, as if every new thought deserves a physical manifestation to demonstrate its brilliance. It reminds Remus of the way Sirius was before—before.

It’s about the only way Sirius and the Doctor are similar, and Remus is glad of that. He’s not... he can’t deal with Sirius, can’t unpack the memories to look at them yet. They’re all too close still, too raw and dear to pick up and examine. But he is glad also to have that one slender thread of familiarity to hold to, an anchor in the surreality of days flowing by every which way.

Sometimes, he talks about Hogwarts. Half the time he’s sure the Doctor isn’t listening, too wrapped up in thought tangles of his own, but it helps to pretend, at least, that Remus is telling someone else about the time James came back to the common room dripping wet and frozen, elated because Lily Evans had hexed him, or about the first time the Marauders transformed all together, the strangest pack ever seen.

“I’ve seen stranger,” the Doctor interrupts when he says that bit, and Remus blinks into awareness from memory, surprised.

“Pardon?” he says, but the Doctor has turned back to his screwdriver and Remus’s wand, which he has appropriated for some test or task he refuses to explain in terms Remus—or any human, more than likely—can understand.

That’s like Sirius too, Remus remembers, though with Sirius there had always been much more gloating and intermittent cackling involved.

Remus doesn’t talk about the last year of school, or what happened after. He doesn’t talk about the disappearances or the fine lines James had developed around the corners of his face, the year he was Head Boy—forced too young to take responsibility seriously, forced to keep a tight hand on his new anger, the sense of duty and powerlessness he never spoke about. Remus doesn’t choose to remember how Sirius coiled in on himself for days after Regulus disappeared, every motion too sharp, too precise and controlled to pass as natural, while violence built up behind his words, waiting to be released. He doesn’t talk about the beds they shared, moving between safe houses with false easiness between them, the lie betrayed only in the pressure of Sirius’s fingers twisted around Remus’s own where no one else could see: too dear to let go and yet uncomfortable, clammy with the fears no one spoke of. 

Remus doesn’t talk about any of that. He does his best to shut it all up and away, which works until there’s a moment of peace, a quiet that stretches out just long enough that the soothing hum of the machinery is no longer enough to fill the emptiness. 

It shouldn’t _hurt_ , Remus thinks when his thoughts grow dark from silence and he can only stare hard at the blinking lights around him because it’s that or destroy everything, rip at cables and put his foot through circuit boards until the wreckage matches him. This emptiness, this scooped-out hole—it shouldn’t hurt like a wound. It makes no rational sense. _Things_ hurt, they leave marks raised like mountains, carry words or ideas which stick to the skin and drag hooks behind them to scratch deep into a soul and leave something tangible behind. But Remus was left with nothing—no clues, no words or goodbyes or screaming fights—nothing but his own diminished self, a face he barely recognizes anymore.

His transformation is almost a relief when the full moon comes; Remus supposes his body must still be tied to the time and place he comes from, because they’ve seen other moons since he left but he hasn’t felt the familiar pain tugging at him once. It’s a relief to have something real to scream about, a true, visceral hurt to snarl at and struggle with, to vent his fury upon. He escapes into the woods when he feels it for the first time without telling the Doctor, lets the red miasma carry him away to rip at bark and animal bones until he wakes up with dawn cooling the cuts and bruises on his skin and the Doctor standing over him, arms crossed.

“That was very stupid,” the Doctor informs him, and Remus closes his eyes again because it _was_ , he knows it was, but it had helped and something in him is viciously glad of that. “Next time, tell me. I can help you. There are ways to make this less painful.”

Remus wants to say _you can’t_ and _there aren’t_ , but that isn’t what the Doctor is talking about. “Thank you,” he says quietly, and the Doctor reaches down a hand. Remus looks at it for a moment, and pushes his palms against the earth to lever himself up instead. 

“Come on,” the Doctor says, stuffing his hands casually into his pockets and striding ahead. “Long way to go still.”

Remus follows, brushing the dirt from his hands, and does not look back at the wreck of the trees behind him.


End file.
